Kiss of Death
by Histoire de le Coeur
Summary: Three friends from the mortal world, find out they're all children of the Big 3. One from Zeus, one from Poseidon, the other from Hades. What adventures will follow? What romances? Find out!
1. Ahem What?

**Kiss of Death**

**(Astra's point of view)**

**The summer had been going fine, until that fateful day. I'd managed to evade trips to the beach as much as possible and had no contact with anyone I knew. Except Nessa, who couldn't stop talking about the beach. We were on our own today and we liked it. Then, we saw **_**him.**_

**We actually didn't need to see his face, just his eyes and hair. Those electric blue eyes, and that blinding corn yellow hair. It disgusted me, actually. It was all too bright. You'd think he was good-looking but in reality he was nothing but a jerk and hated us (hence the jerkiness) and we hated his guts right back. Mark Thomas, tall and jock-like, a friend but an enemy, ruler of the school.**

**He turned around, spotted us and ran over. Well, probably more to my friend Nessa than me but I knew why. We started talking and walking and soon enough we were near the forest part of town. I personally preferred this part of town, more shade and less heat.**

**"Do you girls…hear someone?" Mark asked hesitantly. I wasn't sure if he was joking to scare us or serious. Nessa looked around and nodded her head, there was definitely a rustling in the trees. A rustling in the trees, louder than any squirrel or bird could ever make. Unless the school's nutcase, Mervin Crawford, was creating some mutant woodland creature army. Unlikely. We moved closer together, and looked deeper into the forest. I thought I saw a pair of gruesome red eyes but my mind was in a million places now. I could've seen a monkey juggling knives on top of Nessa's head and be thinking about something else. Sorry, but it's true.**

**Then, a growling, foaming-at-the-mouth, black haired, red eyed hellhound came out from behind a big oak tree. Hellhound? Where'd that come from?**

"**Hellhound!" I said playfully and before I knew it I was running forward to play with the pup. Mark had a what-the-heck-is-she-doing face on, while Nessa had wide eyes and an open mouth. **

"**Pollux!" called a boy's voice. A wave of familiarity came over me. I knew that voice. Some guy with the last name of Herreff.**

"**Hey, don't we know that voice?" Nessa asked to no one in particular. Thanks, Miss Obvious. **

"**Yeah, yeah, we do. Wasn't it that guy who took you to the End-of-School Dance this year, Astra?" Mark said, maybe a little accusatively.**

**That was it! The voice belonged to Darren Herreff. He was a guy who was always joking and annoyed you like the little brother I never had. Light brown hair, brown eyes, clumsy, no wonder Mark was accusing me, that had been the most embarrassing night of my life.**

"_**Darren, we have to dance," I'd said.**_

"_**I assure you, when I'm on the dance floor I should come with an airbag." He said, but as much as I should've listened I didn't and dragged him onto the dance floor. Let's just say, I took an unexpected swim, and not in the school's public pool. Everyone else was too busy snapping photos for the yearbook. Of course Nessa came to comfort me in my time of need. She went to the dance with a coordinated guy.**_

**"Yo, Herreff!," I yelled out in no direction in particular. **

"**Astra, that you?!," yelled out the boy as he appeared from the same big oak that the hellhound had come out behind from. We hadn't really talked since the **_**incident**_** but Mark and Nessa still had great times with him. I did too, don't get me wrong, but they weren't as enjoyable.**

"**Yep, it's me!" I said back, still "wrestling" with the hellhound. I heard him say something that sounded like an Ancient Grecian profanity. I gaped and so did Nessa and Mark. **

"**What?" he asked. He had obviously not noticed the hairy goat legs and hooves that replaced his legs and the horns sticking out of his head. Well, that explained why he didn't want to dance.**

"**Well, dude," Mark started, "you're like a…. goat-boy." Leave it to Mark Thomas to say something like that.**

"**We prefer satyr," he said indignately "and c'mon Pollux get off the nice girl." When he said that last part of his sentence, there was a hint of anxiousness in his voice. Why, I thought, Pollux was a perfectly friendly dog.**

**Nessa came to help me up, and then Pollux began to growl as she grabbed my hand and lifted me up. Darren got a weird look on his face and kept looking back and forth between the hound and me. He kept opening and closing his mouth like he meant to say something but wasn't sure about what words to say.**

**Then, we all heard a deep heavy breathing from behind us. It made even Pollux tremble slightly. I was slowly being lifted into the air. **

"**What is that?" yelled Nessa to Darren**

"**The Minotaur."**

"**How can you be so calm!"**

"**If you yell to much he'll come after you….." he didn't get to finish his lecture because Nessa had also been hit on the head. I was slowly blacking out. The last thing I saw, was Darren shoving a glowing sword into Mark's hand. **

**When I woke up first, I was in a big wooden house with Nessa lying on a cot beside me. There was a sad looking Mark looking mournfully in Nessa's direction. I stifled a laugh. Of course, this time she was, literally, unawake to the evidence.**

**Then a small wrinkled old man came in, on a wheelchair. He stopped looking in Nessa's direction and looked intently in the old man's direction. He must be well respected because Mark bowed his head in honor. Mark never did that. **

"**Are you ready?" the old man asked slowly.**

"**Yes, I think we are." Mark answered in the same tone. They looked towards me again and I pretended to be asleep. Soon enough I was back in unconsciousness.**

**I woke up with a start. I was on the floor of a wooden cabin. There were kids around my age everywhere. Some of them were arguing, and some of them all had the same elfish features.**

**I was getting a headache, from getting up and from the fighting. So, I took a deep breath and thought about a peaceful place. When I did that, everyone else was suddenly quiet and apologetic.**

**What the….?, I thought. As soon as I got frustrated like that, everyone started fighting again. What was going on?**

"**Oh good you're awake!" called Mark. He was in the doorway and shoved his way past the kids and their stuff on the floor.**

"**Oh good, Mark you're here!," I called back, "So now I can torture you for answers!" I shouted with faux cheerfulness. **

**His face fell there because he knew what I could do to him. I suddenly wondered where Nessa was, she was usually always right behind him. Maybe she was still sleeping.**

"**Whoa, girl!" I heard a girl's voice yell. In an instant, there was a palomino horse standing outside. But something was different. There were wings sprouting out from its flanks. And believe me, when I say wings I don't mean little Tinkerbelle wings, I talking about gigantic griffin wings. It looked like a Pegasus from all the Greek mythology books I'd read. **

**I stepped outside to greet the mysterious girl and her freaky bird-horse thing. Despite the pounding headache, I could swear I could feel vibes of disrespect coming from the kids around me. **

"**Hi," said the girl, pinning her dirty blonde hair into a sloppy ponytail, "you must be the new girl. Astrid, right?"**

"**Astra."**

"**Cool."**

"**Uh, is this like some Greek mythological camp, or something?" I asked. She nodded solemnly. I thought I was joking. It was like someone was gonna jump out from somewhere and scream 'Gotcha!' No one did.**

"**I'm Kachiri, Daughter of Apollo. Lemme take you up to Chiron. He can explain it better than I can. C'mon!" she called, dismounting her ride.**

"**Senna, stay!" she commanded, and we were off**

**We once again arrived at the big wooden building. A short, stubby guy was playing cards with the same old man in the wheelchair. Nessa was there with Mark. She was nodding and taking something serious in. She saw me smiled and waved. **

"**Thank you, Kachiri, you may go back to your cabin. But send Zafrina up here in about in hour or two." said the old man to Kachiri. She nodded, and returned to the U-shaped cabins. **

"**Well Astra, come , sit." The man welcomed. I sat uneasily. **

"**Welcome Daughter of the Dark. Let the games begin." Said the chubbier guy.**

**I sat there like an idiot. An idiot about to puke up her last meal. I gasped for breath, water, anything. Thus, sadly , proving I was awake. Suddenly, I was splashed. Nessa! Stupid daughter of Poseidon……..**

**Oh Gods! Oh no there it is again. I'm insane. I know I am. Straightjacket, please. Rubber cell number 13. I'm a demi-god! A goth demi-god! A goth daughter of Hades demi-god! I can manipulate peoples' emotions by one thought. Mark can predict the future. Nessa can read minds, all except mine and Mark's. Thank the gods!**

"**Are you ready for your quest assignment?" Asked Chiron. **

"**Yes." My tone was flat, emotionless.**

"**Go to the Underworld and take Persephone's place as Queen. Her mother, Demeter is refusing to let her return to the Underworld this winter. Only a daughter of Hades can do this. Zafrina, Daughter of Hermes, will be one of your companions. Her father transports souls there so she knows, genetically, what to do." At this, did I freak out. Queen! Of the underworld! I can't even stand up to my friends, but the dead?! Forget it!**

"**But…..I…can't….." I stuttered.**

"**you must." Said Chiron. I heaved a sigh. Nessa and Mark on my sides I walked slowly back to the cabin. My skinny jeans were riding up and my "Beware, I Bite!" t-shirt was twisted backwards……and they wonder why I'm a daughter of Hades.**

"**who're you going to pick to go with you besides Zafrina?" asked Nessa, wistfully. I don't think I could condemn her to that. Mark, maybe. But not Nessa. **

"**You're leaving tomorrow you gotta pick now." Said Mark forcefully. Obviously a son of Zeus. **

**We were all forbidden kids. We weren't supposed to be alive. Zafrina was a daughter of Hermes, so she had to come too, but she was just going to be there. It was my quest and I had to do it. Maybe Darren would be willing to go. I don't think I could do that to him either.**

"**They say dryads are usually good." Offered Mark. "Maybe that girl, Carmen, would go."**

"**Good, I'll ask her." I said. I ran over to the forest were a girl with long golden hair stood.**

"**Carmen?" I asked. I really didn't know what Carmen looked like, I guessed. This girl was the nearest dryad.**

"**No, Daughter of ….well You-Know-Who, I'm Irina." She said, "but whatever you need, I'll do."**

"**Thank you but I doubt you'd do this." I declined.**

"**What is it?" she pressed.**

"**I'm going to the Underworld, to take Persephone's place on the throne, temporarily." I rushed. Her expression wasn't anticipated, though I could feel her excitement vibes.**

"**Count me in!"**

"**there aren't any trees"**

"**I wasn't meant for the "Green Life"". **

"**Alright." I gave in. Irina, Zafrina, and Astra… the Dream Demi-god team.**

**Dawn came a little too soon. Never being much of the early-riser, I ignored the shakings I got from Zafrina and Irina.**

"**Astra!"**

"**Astra, hello?"**

"**Go away!" I yelled.**

"**The Underworld awaits!" cried Zafrina.**

**Zafrina was a short and lanky girl. Her skin was deep tanned and her eyes an icy gray. She wore a punk rocker motorcycle leather jacket, a hot pink tank top under it. She said she preferred going barefoot, so she was. Baggy black and red pants with silver chains (probably stolen from the Aphrodite cabin, during their 80s stage), she looked like quite the rebel. Everyone knew she did whatever it took to fit in, so the black was obviously for the Underworld. **

**Irina was a bit simpler. She sported a "Green is the new Black" T-shirt and a black miniskirt with suspenders. Oh yeah, we're really gonna fit in.**

"**Come on," said Irina, adjusting her straps, "If you hurry you can get to the Oracle, and maybe we'll catch Apollo."**

"**Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I groaned. I got up anyway. Pulled on the same skinny jeans from yesterday, but threw on a Paramore Decode T-shirt and over that a Purple and Black box plaid shirt (mouthful, I know). Plus, it looks like I was the only one normal enough to wear footwear, so it looks like black Converse high-tops were in order.**

**I trudged my way up to the attic of the Big House. A mummified figure lay there, lifeless. Or so I'd thought.**

**It began rasping in a cold voice:**

_**The maiden of darkness will fall**_

_**To this, will one be of call**_

_**A fight for freedom comes to an end**_

_**A treasure waits around the bend.**_

**Huh?**

**I walked back to the hill, by a huge pine tree, where Zafrina and Irina seemed to be waiting for me.**

**They looked like they were hailing a cab…..from the sky.**

**"Apollo!" called Zafrina.**

**"Yup?" called back a teenage guy's voice. **

**A red convertible dropped gracefully out of the sky, and pulled up to Zafrina and Irina. **

**"You girls been out to Hot Topic lately?" he asked. Then eyed me.**

**"That Hades' girls?" he quietly asked Irina. She nodded.**

**"Well, welcome, I'm Apollo God of the Sun," he said, speaking slowly, like I didn't speak English.**

**"I know," I said back, slowly the came way he did, "Astra speak English, like glowey man in shiny car."**

**"Point taken," he smiled, and winked. "You need a ride?"**

**"Yes."**

**"Well, hope in." he said. Zafrina and Irina squealed and high-5ed. I clumsily hopped in the back seat with Irina. Zafrina got up front with Apollo.**

**"Where we going?" he said.**

**"LA." The girls chimed in, together.**

**"I'm guessing the Underworld." He said and sped off. **

**"What the …..!!!!!" I screamed, but my voice was lost. Lost to the billows of clouds, that pasted by as the car sped through the sky. The camp below was like an antfarm, disappearing beneath my feet. **

**As much as I opposed bright light or sunlight or any thing besides a desklamp, the sunrise is so much more beautiful up close. Streaks of purple, pink, red, and orange were painted across the morning sky, as if Zeus was going through an artistic stage. **

**Oh gods, Zeus! I froze up. I was in his domain. Maybe I was about to take a short cut to the Underworld. A more painful, permanent short cut, but effective. **

**"Ah," breathed Apollo, "I love LA, good movies, cute girls, awesome music. Sometimes it gives me the creeps just being here, though. Well, good luck!" He yelled as he dropped of Zafrina, Irina, and me of in front of a music studio, called **_**DOA Recording Studios, No soliciting, No living!**_

**"I've got a good felling about this place." I said, maybe laying the sarcasm on a little too heavy. Actually, I can never lay sarcasm on too heavily….with people I know….Zafrina and Irina were people I didn't know.**

"**Let's get this fight in the stadium," said Zafrina, punching her left hand with her right. Irina and I looked at her, "just a little demi-god humor." She giggled feebly and blushed red.**

**"Moving right along," said Irina. I nodded and walked right through the front doors. Zafrina next, Irina lagging behind. **

**There were people everywhere. Well, not people, souls, fading against the walls. Some looked old, some in their twenties', even some my age. Yet, as different as their looks ranged, they all wore the same melancholy expression. White as powder, thin as paper, they made way when they saw me. **

_**Curious,**_** I thought. We made our way to the front desk where a young man stood. He eyed us all differently, then smiled. He held out his hand, like he was waiting for me to hand him something. **

**"My treat," said Zafrina, taking out a golden coin, and handing it to the man.**

**"We have to pay to get in?" I said, incredulously.**

**"**_**We**_** do," said Irina, "You're **_**his**_** son, so you get in free." I wasn't sure if there was some jealousy in her voice, or maybe just disgust.**

**"Pays to be the boss's daughter, eh?" I said, somewhat happily. **

**"Yeah."**

**"Uh-huh." **

_**Okay, **_**I thought**_**, I miss Nessa, Darren, possibly Mark. Yeah, Mark too.**_

**We walked into a small elevator, and went the only way possible, down. When we got down we got onto a raft-like boat, that floated on an ink-black river. Floating in it were high-school diplomas, prom queen tiaras**


	2. His Hand, My Tongue

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO (Rick Riordan), Apollo (The Greeks), French phrases (uhh..the French), Italian phrases (uhh..Signora Santini?), The Underworld (well maybe I own this), Avenue Q (Jeffrey Marx), Les Miserables (Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg and of course Victor Hugo), Phantom of the Opera (Andrew Lloyd Webber), and the quote "I see dead people" (The 6th Sense).**

**Sorry for having taken so long!**

* * *

"We're in the Underworld." I said flatly, to no one in particular. It'd be nice though if Irina or Zafrina were listening.

"If you want to be technical, we're on the River Styx. Otherwise yes, we're in the Underworld." Irina pointed out.

"We're _in_ the Underworld." I repeated. I stared at the black water, expecting a skeleton hand to come shooting out of it and drag me to the depths. Yes, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' had come out at just the right time.

"Yeppers." confirmed Zafrina, imperturbably perky despite the rotting smell of death itself at the tip of her nose. Not that it bothered me.

"We're in _the_ Underworld." I repeated. Apparently third time's a charm.

"Do you have some kind of disease or something that makes you do that?!" shouted Irina. No one bothered to stare, thank the gods. "Suck it up, Daughter of Hades, Queen de la mort! I'm scared enough as it is!" Before I could hang my head in shame, Irina immediately backed down. "Oh I'm so sorry! I don't know what happened to me I just...Please don't send me to the Fields of Punishment! I just...miss my tree."

Irina bowed her head to me until she couldn't see above my chin. "Your Majesty?" She asked timidly. Zafrina looked on, excited for some action. The "Your Majesty" was the last straw for me.

"No, Irina." I said gravely. "I'm still Astra; the same weird Gotho theatre Avenue Q obsessed freak from..."

"No way!" A fellow Avenue Q-er? Why didn't you tell me?" said a guy's voice behind us. I knew it some way or another. And was it just me or did everything just get a little brighter and warmer once I heard him? I was just about to say...

"Apollo?!" When Zafrina and Irina simultaneously beat me to it in that previous ejaculation. All I could say now was "Ditto." We turned around to see Apollo, in teenage form, standing behind us on the same boat. I tried my best to hide behind my clothes and hair as much as possible because Apollo radiated light and heat. And too much sun for me is a cloudy day for everyone else. Irina responded well to the heat and light and looked all around better, and Zafrina just looked flirty.

"Astra right?" He asked, trying to move closer, without rocking the boat. "So Avenue Q? Anything else?"

"Oh you know, all the classics." I said.

_Stop twirling your hair!_ I thought.

_What? _I thought.

_Stop twirling you hair!_ I yelled at myself again. I finally realized what I was doing.

_Oh...shit._

He nodded for me to go on, in specifics. Alas, my tongue never stays confounded for long. However, if I was saying something PWN-worthy, it didn't come out right to this Olympian.

"Wow, god of music can't think of anything?" I asked ever so cheesy.

"Try me." He said slyly. I raised myself up to stand a little taller, in face of this little challenge, which thankfully distracted me from the bigger challenge on my hands. But what could he do? He was after all:

a) In the Underworld

b) in 17-year-old boy form

Before I poured a deluge of my theatrical knowledge on him, Charon stopped the boat and announced, "Will all newly departed souls, depart from the boat as if your life depended on it." He laughed to himself and winked at me.

"You think you're quite funny don't you?" I asked acidly.

"Hey," he retorted, "I work with dead people. If I don't laugh at them every once in a while, I'll become one!"

_Wow, this is my Disney world and everyone's acting like the time I dragged Nessa to a Goth poem reading session._

Grabbing me by the shoulders, Zafrina said, "Well we'd gladly help you on your way there, but the Queen is late." Charon looked enviously at Apollo as the sunshine god got off first, jumping lightly from boat to shore, Zafrina and I next, and Irina followed close behind.

"Zafrina, uh, you can let go now." I whispered.

"No can do, Miss Keleton," I rolled my eyes. "'Cause if I get lost...believe me."

"I thought your dad was the god of travellers!"

"Yeah, travellers, wanderers, hitchhikers...If I get lost, I'll just be wandering around forever."

"Oh, OK." I submitted incredulously. Apollo turned around to face me.

"Don't think I'm forgetting our conversation so quickly. Theatre classics, as you were saying, Signorina."

"Yes, right ...okay.." A bit thrown off by being called 'Signorina', I said, "Well first and foremost, 'Les Miserables'." I waited for his opinion. Remember he could burn me to bits in a second. Burning is not a way I'd like to die. Preferably peacefully, listening the the previously mentioned musical.

"Ah, I must honestly say, though everyone one of my children have had some part in that show, it is highly overrated."

Now, this was my first real physical argument with a god. All proper etiquette unknown. Therefore I must say that I gasped audibly.

"I'll give you my dissertation on it later then." I said, somewhat concentrating on his feet. "Next...woah Zafrina stop pushing so hard...and fast."

Her response: "Hehe...I see dead people." Ignoring the cries of souls and the points of black stalactites above us, I continued.

"Next, oh yeah, duh...The Phaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..." Zafrina's pushing and fast-moving had finally caused me to trip on the rocky terrain. Apollo was laughing, as my embarrassment took home the gold by making me blush.

"Well you got the hardest note of the title song down. Here." He offered me his sleek tan hand. When I grabbed his hand, it was like everything exactly my opposite flooded into me. There is no way to make it sound any less like a Twilight ripoff, when in fact its nothing like it at all.

Of course, the obvious, light and heat came to head first, but then there was good-natured humor, conformity, healing, songs powerful without a screamer, poetry that filled your heart with fluffiness and not your eyes with tears, light colors, outgoing, the need to be social, and something I'd always dreamt of but never actually had...equality. This last one baffled me beyond belief. How could I feel equal when holding hands with a god?

"All will be explained." whispered the god of prophecies. Is there anything he doesn't own?

Once I was upright, a thunderous voice shook all of the Underworld from the goody-goodies in Elysia to the monsters of Tartarus. The stalactites trembled, threatening to fall like the blade of the guillotine, and damned souls shrieked like her traitor victims.

It said : "ASTRA, DAUGHTER OF HADES, YOU ARE SUMMONED TO THE PALACE."

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**Sorry guys if there's a few errors. I'm part typing, part watching the Olympics live from Vancouver, which I think is something we all can relate to (looking for demigods!).**

**R.I.P. Nodar Kamaritashvili **

***is still trying to figure out a more meaningful sad face than just :(* If you know, tell me please! I cry every time they bring it up on NBC.**

**Review!**


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